By J. Dana StusterJ. Dana Stuster is an assistant editor at Foreign Policy. He has studied at the American University of Beirut and graduated in 2010 with degrees in English and International Relations from the University of California, Davis. Before coming to FP, his work appeared in the Atlantic and the National Interest, among other publications.

March 15, 2013

Gen. John Allen, U.S. Marine Corps, was the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan from July 2011 to February 2013. From 2006 to 2008, he served as the deputy commanding general in al-Anbar Province, where he played a key role in the so-called "Sunni Awakening."

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, senior correspondent and associate editor at the Washington Post, was Baghdad bureau chief in 2003 and 2004. He is the author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone and Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan.

Chris Chivvis is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, where he worked on Eurasian security issues and NATO-Russia cooperation.

Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood professor of strategic studies and director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Service. He was a member of the Defense Policy Board and served as counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Amb. James Dobbins is director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center. A veteran diplomat, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he was named the Bush administration’s representative to the Afghan opposition with the task of assembling a successor to the Taliban regime.

Peter Feaver is professor of political science and public policy at Duke University — and a Foreign Policy blogger. He was special advisor for strategic planning and institutional reform on the National Security Council staff from 2005 to 2007.

Doug Feith is director of the Center for National Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute. He served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005.

Susan Glasser is editor in chief of Foreign Policy. She spent four years as co-chief of the Washington Post‘s Moscow bureau and covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for the Post in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 before returning to Washington, where she edited the Post‘s weekly Outlook section and led its national news coverage.

Michael Gordon is a national security correspondent for the New York Times. He is the co-author, with Bernard Trainor, of two books about the Iraq war: Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq and The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama.

Steve Hadley is senior adviser for international affairs at the United States Institute for Peace. He served as President George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser from 2001 to 2005 and as his national security adviser from 2005 to 2009.

Greg Jaffe is a Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post. He is the co-author, with David Cloud, of The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army.

Col. Peter Mansoor (ret.) is the Raymond E. Mason Jr. chair in military history at Ohio State University. The author of Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq, Mansoor served as executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus when he commanded multinational forces in Iraq.

Philip Mudd is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. Mudd managed Iraq analysis at the CIA from 1999 to 2001, he served as the CIA member of the small diplomatic team that helped piece together a new government for Afghanistan, and he was the first-ever deputy director of the FBI’s national security branch.

Lt. Col. John Nagl (ret.) is the Minerva Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy. An operations officer in a tank battalion during Operation Iraqi Freedom, he helped author the revision of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, with Gen. David Petraeus, in 2006.

Paul Pillar is a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies. A 28-year veteran analyst at the CIA, during which time he focused on counterterrorism and the Middle East, he retired in 2005 as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.

Kenneth Pollack is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He previously worked for the CIA and National Security Council, focusing on the Middle East.

Amb. Charlie Ries is vice president, international at the RAND Corporation. A career diplomat, he served as coordinator for economic transition in Iraq at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 2007-2008.

David Rothkopf is CEO and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy. He is the author of Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government and the Reckoning that Lies Ahead and Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. He also serves as president and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, an international advisory firm.

David Sanger is chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times and the author of two books: Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power and The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.

Kalev Sepp is senior lecturer at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations capabilities, he participated in congressionally appointed 2006 Iraq Study Group.

Walt Slocombe is senior counsel for the law firm Caplin & Drysdale. He was the undersecretary of defense for policy from 1994 to 2001, and in 2003 he became a senior advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority.